80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Mimi! Rimi! Kai! Kumano! Ikeshita!

Disc 2 

3. Jackie Sato, Mimi Hagiwara & Rimi Yokota vs. Leilani Kai, Mami Kumano & Yumi Ikeshita 1/4/81

K: AJW traditionally do a good Korakuen show on or around January 4th where you’re almost guaranteed to get a quality main event even if they’re not almost the most consequential. This match is such a good example of what these shows were going for. Here we have probably the top 3 babyfaces in a company going up against the top 2 heels and one of the currently residing foreigners (who almost always align with heels) in a ⅔ falls match, which the main event tag matches usually were. 

Another note, Rimi Yokota vacated the Junior Title before this show to focus on challenging for the WWWA Singles Title (and I guess, outside of kayfabe, no one at the junior level was ever going to beat her for it). Before this match Tomoko Kitamura (later Lioness Asuka) defeated the obscure Noriko Kawakami to win the vacated title.

The heels are in control for an unusually long time to start off with here, especially since it’s Jackie Sato who they’re dominating first. I thought it was cool how Leilani Kai would have a lot of choking-centred offense, and when Yumi Ikeshita came in, she continued on that theme by switching up her offense to target the throat. For example she just stands on Sato’s neck disdainfully, and a bit later she changes her “plant opponent’s face onto sticking up toes” move so that she plants Jackie’s throat on it instead. When Rimi is able to tag in, there is no hot tag, as she just gets dominated as well. The comeback actually comes from Mimi Hagiwara, whose new gimmick is that she’s taken up boxing training and is now a fearsome striker. It’s a bit ridiculous when you describe it when she has such spaghetti arms, but I think it works at neutering a weakness by insisting in kayfabe actually Mimi is strong and punches really hard. The conviction she puts behind those haymakers and that they actually work in taking down Kai and getting the comeback going after everything else had fails puts her punches over as legit. You can make all kinds of things work in wrestling if you commit to them. They even come back to this in the 2nd fall, when Mimi clenches a fist at Kai and that’s enough to get Kai to back off into her corner.

The 2nd fall has a fantastic final few minutes where Jackie manages to tie up Leilani Kai and Mami Kumano in the ropes and so they can’t help their partner. Then we get ‘Flew Too Close To The Sun’ sequence where Yumi Ikeshita just gets battered with one move after another by Jackie & Rimi making quick tags in and out, before she gets pinned with a very spectacular move where Rimi runs at the corner pad and kinda dropkicks it to spin around into a running splash but with extra oompf. Great stuff.

In the 3rd fall all the tension and violence we’d seen building up in the first 2 just explodes. They’re quickly on the outside brawling and just punching each other hard like rival football hooligans. A chair gets introduced to Yokota’s neck. There is an unfortunate bit after this where Mimi Hagiwara’s in the ring with Leilani Kai and goes for a few poorly executed takedowns which hurt the previously ferocious momentum a bit, but Rimi rushes into to rectify that. We get a more measured cooldown when the heels take over on Mimi and get a measure of revenge when they trap her in the ropes and drop her throat first into it. This lasts just about enough for the crowd to get their energy back because before you know it all hell breaks loose, they’re all running into the ring and brawling and Jackie Sato & Yumi Ikeshita look like they’re damn trying to murder each other choking over out on the floor. The match fall gets thrown out and the match is called a draw.

Great match. Exciting all the way through, we got memorable interactions in a bunch of pairings and Mimi Hagiwara’s boxing deal is getting over (she’d done it before this but this is the first time you’ll see it on this set). They achieved all that without giving anything away, not even a real finish.

****

MD: On the one hand this devolved into chaos and got thrown out. On the other, some of the checkpoints along the way felt almost evolutionary as we move into 1981. Moving into 1981, I am acutely aware that we’re on borrowed time with some of these wrestlers. We’ll lose Kumano and (for the most part) Jackie, of course, by the end of the year. So I guess we appreciate what we have while we have it. 

Kai seems like she’d come along in the year or so since we’ve seen her. Still a lot of choking and Moolah-ism but more presence and confidence. The start was clever as she went to the floor to call out Jackie only to set up a distraction so the Black Pair could nail her from behind. They controlled from there on Jackie then Yokota (whose frame makes her a great FIP) and then Mimi. But apparently Mimi had developed as well because she had gloves on her hands and was now a great puncher apparently. She ducked a Kai shot and laid in a bunch of blows to turn things around. That let them do a big corner spot where Jackie and Mimi held all three of the heels so Yokota could come flying at them repeatedly. Ikeshita took back over with a nasty headbutt though and they dismantled Mimi with missile dropkicks, Ikeshita’s fall away slam, release bombs from Kumano, and then a big suplex by Kai to win the first fall.

Jackie asserted herself right at the start of the second fall, but the heels took back over, including with an Ikeshita seated senton out of nowhere. The babyfaces turned it around with one of the best things I’ve seen out of all of the footage so far. Kai and Kumano came over to menace Jackie on the apron but she and Mimi were able to get their heads tied up in between the ropes, allowing the babyfaces to switch around and completely demolish Ikeshita finishing with Yokota pressing back off the top turnbuckle with a ricocheting splash. The third fall had some spirited stuff on the outside, including a chair getting stuffed down upon Yokota by Kai’s partner (maybe Wendi Richter in overalls?), but it devolved into chaos and got thrown out. This built to some great moments and, like most of the 80s matches was a little more even than the 70s beatdowns so felt more complete. It was a good way to start the year.